There's a song that's sung by large numbers of London's football fraternity - including, I'm sad to say, sections of the support of my own club, West Ham United - that proclaims, to the tune of 'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain':

A catchy ditty, I'm sure you'll agree, and one that could just about come under the umbrella of that catch-all cop out 'terrace wit' had your definition of wit not evolved since you first stepped foot outside of the school playground.

In recent years, though, each line of that chucklesome chorus has been punctuated with the refrain: 'F***ing Jew!'

And not in a jokey way, either. I've witnessed dozens of lads marching down the road spitting out the phrase as if it were a stale mouthful of lager.

Jamie McDonald / Getty

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Think back: when was the last time you heard a terrace chant sung en masse that made disparaging reference to the physical characteristics of an ethnic minority before concluding with a similarly spiteful kicker.

'F***ing black!', maybe. Or Ff***ing P**i!'? Or fF***ing anyone ?

Chances are that you won't have done for many, many years. Or, depending on your age, at all.

Thanks to the utterly commendable work by high-profile anti-racism campaigners and organisations like Kick It Out, even the most wrong-headed of terrace racists have cottoned on to the fact that it's no longer acceptable to abuse others for the colour of their skin.

Their religious views, though? Well, that sees to be an entirely different ball game.

Traditionally, thanks to their geographical location and post-war crowd demographic, Tottenham Hotspur have born the brunt of English football's pent-up anti-semitism.

Thankfully the days in which their fans - Jews and gentiles alike - were regularly regaled with the vilest of chants centred around Concentration Camps, such as '70s hit 'Spurs are on their way to Belsen', or greeted with banks of opposing fans simulating the sound of gas being released, are receding into history.

Again, even the most virulent anti-semites realise that brazen references to Nazism are now terminally taboo, and It's been some years since I was caught up in a West Ham crowd celebrating a win over Spurs by adapting the words of 'Singing The Blues' to 'Gassing the Jews'.

It would be wrong to think that anti-semitism has somehow been eradicated from our football grounds, or driven underground, though. If anything, the success in combating other forms of terrace racism have made anti-semitism even more prevalent. The 'Y-word', as Kick It Out's current campaign explains , has become a common adjective of abuse.

"The Y-word is - and has been for many, many years - a race hate word," explains David Baddiel, a Jewish comedian, Chelsea fan and celebrity figurehead for the current initiative.

"It's our belief that some football fans may not even realise this, and [our campaign's film] is designed therefore to inform and raise debate."

The quiet murmur of debate it provoked was telling, its critics stock positions being either to deny there was a problem at all, or else to blame the word's proliferation on those Tottenham fans who, in the face of decades of abuse, have come to refer to themselves as Yiddos or members of the Yid Army.

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The latter is, of course, the same argument employed by racists confused by rappers referring to themselves as 'n*****s', or homophobes unsure as to why gay men are allowed to use the derogation 'f****t' when talking about homosexuals, but simpleton homophobes can't.

For the benefit of any anti-semites reading this, here's the explanation: one's permission to use race-hate words is directly linked to one's relationship to them.

Or, to put it another way, here's a simple rule of thumb when considering using race-hate language: have you - or your direct descendants - been persecuted with this word, and would your everyday use of it therefore redress the balance by reclaiming and neutering said word(s)?

If the answer is 'no' then sorry, chump, but you can't go there. No matter how unfair that may seem.

Kick It Out have asked Chelsea to screen 'The Y-word' at Stamford Bridge before the Blues kick off against Tottenham at tea-time on Saturday. Here's hoping those inside the ground are paying attention when they do.

In a week when various fans have been - rightly - criticised for chanting about Munich, Hillsborough and the imagined sexual perversions of high profile football figures, it would be a crime if this equally important message was drowned out.